First world war in historic Guardian infographics

A century ago, Europe was on the verge of war. A Balkan peace treaty was about to be signed but only a year later, on August 4, 1914, Britain would declare war on Germany. For newspaper graphic artists given tiny space - and only a few years after the papers started running photographs - it presented fresh challenges: how do you illustrate France to a readership which had largely never been there? How do you explain the latest tactics as war becomes an industrialised, mechanised slaughter? This is a selection of how the Manchester Guardian did it
•See more historic Guardian infographics•Find out more about Facts are Sacred - our guide to data journalism and visualisation

September 10, 1914: A month after Britain's declaration of War and the Germans near Paris. The Manchester Department's map department explains it in two columns. As the war progressed, the team increasingly had to portray areas of the world of which their readers would be unlikely to have known much or to have visited

August 28, 1915: Russia's campaign explained. Imagine you're working for the Manchester Guardian's map department and you have to explain a complicated military campaign in a single column. This is how they did it in 1915 - with an abstract series of arrows and bars illustrating the movements of the troops

October 6, 1915: the rise (and fall) of Germany's submarine campaign. The worst week was the 25 August 1915 - with the sinking of the SS Arabic by the U-24 and the loss of over 80,000 tonnes - and 44 passengers and crew, 3 of whom were American

October 18, 1916: The Somme Battle achievement: what now lies before the Allies. It had started on July 1, 1916 - by this stage of the battle British and French forces had suffered major losses as the battle ground to a halt. This shows what was still to come as the battle ground on for another two months. Bigger version

May 1, 1917: As the war progressed, the Guardian map department were busy, having to squeeze the complexities of war into the tiny spaces they had available. These charts accompanied a detailed analysis of the battles around Bapaume and Thiepval - the crux of the fighting according to the author: "Victory here defeats not only ythe German army but also the German fleet". This had already been the scene of a major part of the Battle of the Somme operations - and the scnee of conflict again in the Second Battle of Bapaume in 1918, won by Australian and Canadian troops

July 27, 1917: A device in the German Gotha machine. By 1917, the air war had begun in earnest and the large bombers - the Gothas had hit London by this point of the war - were particularly vulnerable to fighter attack. This shows a new device introduced by the Germans to protect them in their blind spot.